THUS TWO IDEAS that the masses understand and accept--the idea of force
and the idea of justice--are equally inimical to democratic ideas, which
are based on individualism. To these must be added three more negative
and interrelated factors: first, the continued low cultural level of the
greater pa of our people, especially in respect to everyday culture; second,
the dominance of the many myths assiduously propagated by the mass information
media; and third, the extreme social disorientation of the bulk of our
people.

The "proletarianization" of the countryside has created an "alien class"
neither peasant nor working class. They have the dual psychology of the
owners of tiny homesteads and of farm hands working on gigantic and anonymous
farms. How this class views itself, and what it wants, is known, I think,
to nobody. Furthermore, the mass exodus of peasants to the city has created
a new type of city dweller a person who has broken with his old environment,
way of life and culture and who is finding it very difficult to discover
his place in his new environment and feels ill at ease in it. He is both
frightened and aggressive. He no longer has any idea to what level
of society he belongs.

While the old social structure in both town and village has been completely
destroyed, a new one is only just beginning to form. The "ideological foundations"
on which itís being built are extremely primitive the desire for material
well-being (relatively modest from a Western viewpoint) and the instinct
for self-preservation. Thus the concept "profitable" is confronted with
the concept "risky."

It is hard to tell whether, aside from those purely material criteria,
the bulk of our people possess any kind of moral criteria such as "honorable"
and "dishonorable," "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong," the supposedly
eternal principles which function as inhibiting and guiding factors when
the mechanism of social constraint begins to fall apart and man is left
to his own devices.

I have formed the impression, which may be wrong, that our people do
not have any such moral criteria or hardly any. The Christian ethic, with
its concepts of right and wrong, has been shaken loose and driven out of
the I popular consciousness. An attempt was made to replace it I with "class"
morality, which can be summarized as follows Good is what at any given
moment is required by authority. Naturally, such a morality, together with
the propagation and stimulation of class and national animosities, has
totally demoralized society and deprived it of any nonopportunistic moral
criteria. . . .

Thus the Christian ethic, which in Russia had a semipagan as well as
official character, died out without being replaced by a Marxist ethic.
(There is not space here to discuss at length, but it is worth mentioning
that Russia received her Christianity from Byzantium, which was rigid and
moribund, and not from the developing and dynamic young Western civilization.
This could not but deeply influence subsequent Russian history.)
"Marxist doctrine" was revised and reversed to suit current needs too often
for it to become a viable ideology. And now as the regime becomes ever
more bureaucratic, it becomes ever less ideological.

The need for an ideological underpinning forces the regime to look toward
a new ideology, namely, Great Russian nationalism, with its characteristic
cult of strength and expansionist ambitions. Something similar took place
at the beginning of the century, when the traditional monarchist ideology
was replaced by a narrow nationalism. The Czarist regime even introduced
into everyday speech the expression "genuinely Russian people" in distinction
to the simpler term "Russian," and inspired the creation of the Union of
the Russian People.

A regime grounded in such an ideology needs external and internal enemies
who are not so much "class" enemies for instance, "American imperialists"
and "anti-Soviet elements") as national enemies (for instance, Chinese
and Jews ). Such a nationalistic ideology, although it may prove temporarily
useful to the regime, is very dangerous for a country in which those of
Russian nationality constitute less than half the total population.

The need for a viable nationalist ideology is not only acutely felt
by the regime, but nationalist feelings also appear to be taking hold in
Soviet society, primarily in official literary and artistic circles (where
they have evidently developed as a reaction to the considerable role of
Jews in official Soviet art). Beyond these circles, these feelings have
a center of sorts in the "Rodina" (Father1and) Club. This ideology can
perhaps be called neoSlavophile," although it should not be confused with
the "Christian ideology" partially tinged with Slavophilism which we discussed
earlier. Its central features are an interest in Russianness, a belief
in the messianic role of Russia and an extreme scorn and hostility toward
everything non-Russian.

Since it was not inspired directly by the regime but arose spontaneously,
the regime regards the new nationalism with a certain mistrust (an example
of this is the ban on the film Andrei Rubliov), yet at the same time with
considerable tolerance. It could become a force to be reckoned with at
any moment. . . .

What, then, are the beliefs and guiding ideas of this people with no
religion or morality? They believe in their own national strength, which
they demand that other peoples fear, and they are guided by a recognition
of the strength of their own regime, of which they themselves are afraid.
(It goes without saying that most Russians approved, or regarded with indifference,
the Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia. On the other hand, they
resented deeply that the Chinese went unpunished for the March, 1969, clashes
on the Ussuri River border between China and the Soviet Union.)

Under this assessment it is not difficult to imagine what forms and
directions popular discontent will take if the regime loses its hold. The
horrors of the Russian revolutions of 1905-7 and 1917-20 would then look
like idylls in comparison.

There is, of course, a counterbalancing factor to these destructive
tendencies. Contemporary Soviet society can be compared with a triple-decker
sandwich: the top layer is the ruling bureaucracy; the middle layer consists
of the "middle class" or the "class of specialists"; and the bottom layer,
the most numerous, consists of the workers, peasants, petty clerks and
so on. Whether Soviet society will manage to reorganize itself in a peaceful
and painless way and survive the forthcoming cataclysm with a minimum of
casualties will depend on how rapidly the middle layer of the sandwich
expands at the expense of the other two and on how rapidly the "middle
class" and its organization grow, whether faster or slower than the disintegration
of the system.

It should be noted, however, that there is another powerful factor which
works against the chance of any kind of peaceful reconstruction and which
is equally negative for all levels of society this is the extreme isolation
in which the regime has placed both society and itself. This isolation
has not only separated the regime from society, and all sectors of society
from each other, but also put the country in extreme isolation from the
rest of the world. This isolation has created for all from the bureaucratic
elite to the lowest social levels an almost surrealistic picture of the
world and of their place in it. Yet the longer this state of affairs helps
to perpetuate the status quo, the more rapid and decisive will be its collapse
when confrontation with reality becomes inevitable.

SUMMING UP it can be said that as the regime becomes progressively weaker
and more self-destructive it is bound to clas--and there are already clear
indications that this is happenin--with two forces which are already undermining
it: the constructive movement of the "middle class" (rather weak) and the
destructive movement of the "lower classes," which will take the form of
extremely damaging, violent and irresponsible action once its members realize
their relative immunity from punishment. How long, though, will it be before
the regime faces such an upheaval, and how long will it be able to bear
the strain?

This question can be considered in two ways, depending on whether the
regime itself takes decisive and forthright measures to rejuvenate itself
or whether it merely continues to make the minimal necessary changes so
as to stay in power, as it is doing now. To me, the second alternative
appears more likely because it requires less effort, because it appears
to be the less dangerous course and because it corresponds to the sweet
illusions of today's "Kremlin visionaries."

However, some mutations within the regime are also theoretically possible
for instance, a militarization of the regime and a transition to an openly
nationalistic policy (this could be accomplished by a military coup de
etat or by the gradual transfer of power into the hands of the military.

Such a policy would no longer disguise the regime's actions beneath
the cloak of "protecting the interests of the international Communist movement"
in order to make some sort of gesture toward the independent and semi-independent
Communist parties in the outside world; (As for the role of the army, it
is constantly growing. This can be seen by anyone, for example, who compares
today's ratio of military officers to civilians on the re viewing stand
on top of Lenin's Mausoleum during parades with what it was ten or fifteen
years ago. )

Another possible and very different mutation of the regime could occur
through economic reforms and the relative liberalization of the system
that would follow such reforms. (This could be achieved by increasing the
role in the political leadership of pragmatic economists who understood
the need for change.)

Neither of these possibilities appears unlikely on the face of it. However,
the party machine, against which either coup would in effect be directed,
is so closely intertwined with the military and economic establishments
that both groups, if they pursued the aim of change, would very soon bog
down in the same old quagmire. Any fundamental change would require such
a drastic shake-up in personnel from top to bottom that, understandably,
those who personify the regime would never embark on it. To save the regime
at the cost of firing themselves would seem to them too exorbitant and
unfair a price to pay.

On the question of how long the regime can survive, I several interesting
historical parallels may be cited. At present, at least some of the conditions
that led to the first and second Russian revolutions probably exist again
a caste-ridden and immobile society, a rigid governmental system which
openly clashes with the need for economic development, general bureaucratization
and the existence of a privileged bureaucratic class, and national animosities
within a multinational state in which certain nations enjoy privileged
status.

Under these same conditions, the Czarist regime would probably have
survived quite a while longer and would possibly have undergone some kind
of peaceful modernization had the governing class not fantastically misjudged
the general situation and its own strength, and pursued a policy of foreign
expansion that overtaxed its powers. In fact, had the government of Nicholas
II not gone to war against Japan, there would have been no Revolution of
1905-7, and had it not gone to war against Germany, there would have been
no revolution in 1917. (Strictly speaking, it did not start either of these
wars itself, but it did its utmost to see that they were started.)

Why regimes that have become internally stagnant tend to develop a militantly
ambitious foreign policy I find hard to say. Perhaps they seek a way out
of their domestic problems through their foreign policies. Perhaps, on
the other hand, the ease with which they can suppress internal opposition
creates in their minds an illusion of omnipotence. Or perhaps it is because
the need to have an external enemy, deriving from internal policy aims,
builds up such momentum that it becomes impossible to halt the growth of
hostility. This view is supported by the fact that every totalitarian regirne
decays without itself noticing it.

Why did Nicholas I need the Crimean War, which brought down the system
he had created? Why did Nicholas II need the wars with Japan and Germany?
The present regime, curiously enough, embodies traits of the reigns of
both Nicholas I and Nicholas II, and, in its internal policy, probably
that of Alexander III also. . . .

[At this point Amalrik develops a scenario in which the Soviet Union
will become involved in a nonnuclear war on its southern border within
about ten years. Of this war he says "All signs thus point to a war that
will be protracted and exhausting, with no quick victory for either side."
In this war, he speculates the United States will not support the Soviet
Union. Then he asks: "And what will our European allies do?"

After the Second World War the Soviet Union succeeded in creating along
its western frontier a chain of neutral states, including Germany, and
thus guaranteed its security in Europe. Such states, with "interim" regimes
like the one in Czechoslovakia until 1948, for instance, might have served
as buffers between the West and the Soviet Union and guaranteed a stable
situation in Europe. Their basic difference from the buffer states of the
period between the world wars would have lain in the fact that they could
have served not as a cordon sanitaire for the West against the Soviet Union,
but as a connecting bridge with it.

However, the Soviet Union, by pursuing the Stalinist policy of territorial
expansion and the deliberate fostering of international tension, extended
its sphere of influence a to the farthest possible limit and thereby created
a danger for itself. Inasmuch as the existing situation in Europe is maintained
only through the constant pressure of the Soviet Union, it may be assumed
that as soon as this pressure lets up or disappears, considerable changes
will occur in Central and Eastern Europe. This pressure, we may observe,
is sometimes deliberately intensified as in the Berlin crises, and sometimes
it takes on a purely hysterical character.

Now as soon as it becomes clear that the military conflict between the
Soviet Union and China will be protracted, that all the forces of the Soviet
Union are being transferred to the East, and that the U.S.S.R. cannot look
after its interests in Europe, Germany will surely be reunited. It is entirely
possible that West Germany, in order to hasten this process, will extend
support in some form or another to China.

It is hard to predict whether reunification will come about through
the absorption of East Germany by West Germany or whether the leaders of
East Germany who will follow Walter Ulbricht, understanding what is at
stake, will agree to a voluntary merger with Bonn in order to preserve
some of their privileges. Whatever the case, a reunited Germany with a
fairly pronounced anti-Soviet orientation will create an entirely new situation
in Europe

Clearly, the reunification of Germany will coincide with a process of
de-Sovietization in the East European countries and will considerably hasten
this process. Paradoxical as it may seem, the Soviet Union can already
rely more on President Nixon, the leader of "American imperialism," than
on such allies as Ceausescu of Rumania or Dr. Husak of Czechoslovakia.
The situation in Eastern Europe today somewhat resembles the situation
after the revolutions of 1848, when the democratization that was hoped
for did not come about and yet the old regime was shaken.

It is difficult to say how the de-Sovietization of Eastern Europe will
proceed and whether it will assume the "Hungarian," the "Rumanian" or the
"Czechoslovak" form. However, it will surely result in national-Communist
regimes, which in each country will somewhat resemble their pre-Communist
regimes liberal democracy in Czechoslovakia, a military-nationalist regime
in Poland and so forth. Meanwhile, several countries at least, such as
Hungary and Rumania, will promptly follow their pro-German orientation.

The Soviet Union could evidently prevent all this only by a military
occupation of all Eastern Europe aimed at creating a safe rear area for
its Far Eastern front. In fact, however, such a rear area would become
a second front, that is, a front against the Germans, who would receive
the help of the peoples of Eastern Europe something the Soviet Union could
not afford

It is more likely, therefore, that the de-Sovietized countries of Eastern
Europe will dash around like horses without their bridles and, finding
the Soviet Union powerless in Europe, will present territorial claims that
have long been hushed but not forgotten: Poland to Lvov and Vilna, Germany
to Kaliningrad (Konigsberg), Hungary to Transcarpathia, Rumania to Bessarabia.
The possibility that Finland will lay claim to Viborg and Pechenga is also
not to be excluded. It is probable, as well, that as the Soviet Union becomes
more deeply involved in the war, Japan, too, will present territorial claims,
first to the Kurile Islands, then to Sakhalin and later, depending on Chinaís
success, even to a portion of the Soviet Far East.

Apparently the leaders of the Soviet regime are aware of the threat
from Germany and Japan that would arise in the course of a conflict with
China, and they might be inclined to take drastic steps toward a rapprochement
with those countries. Yet because of the bureaucratic nature of the regime,
Moscow cannot be expected to take any decisive steps in this direction.

Briefly, then, the Soviet Union will have to pay up in full for the
territorial annexations of Stalin and for the isolation in which the neo-Stalinists
have placed the country. However, the events most important to the future
of the Soviet Union will occur within the country itself.

NATURALLY, the beginning of a war against China which will be portrayed
as the aggressor, will cause a flare-up of Russian nationalism "We'll show
them!" simultaneously raising the hopes of the non-Russian nationalities
within the Soviet Union. As the war progresses Russian nationalism will
decline while non-Russian nationalism will rise. Indeed, the war will go
on for some time without having any direct effect on the emotional perceptions
of the people or their way of life, as was the case during the last war
with Germany, but all the while exacting a mounting toll of lives.

Eventually the conflict will give rise to a steadily deepening moral
weariness with a war waged far away and for no apparent reason. Meanwhile,
economic hardships, particularly related to food supplies, will appear,
which will be felt all the more deeply because of the recent slow but steady
rise in the standard of living.

Since the regime is not lenient enough to permit any legal channels
for the expression of discontent and thus its alleviation, and since at
the same time it is not brutal enough to rule out all possibility of protest,
there will ensue sporadic eruptions of popular dissatisfaction, or local
riots, caused, for instance, by shortages of bread. These will be put down
with the help of troops, which, in turn, will accelerate the collapse of
the army. Naturally, the so-called internal security troops will be used
and, if possible, troops of a nationality other than that of the population
that is rioting, but this will merely sharpen enmities among the nationalities.

As the regime's difficulties mount and as it appears ever more incapable
of coping with its tasks, the "middle class" will grow increasingly hostile.
The defection of allies and the territorial claims advanced in both West
and East will increase the feeling of isolation and hopelessness. Extremist
organizations, which will have made an appearance by this time, will begin
to play an ever greater role. Simultaneously, the nationalist tendencies
of the non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union will intensify sharply,
first in the Baltic area, the Caucasus and the Ukraine, then in Central
Asia and along the Volga.

In many cases, party officials among the various nationalities may become
the proponents of such tendencies, and their reasoning will be "Let Russian
Ivan solve his own problems." They will aim for national separateness for
still another reason: if they can fend off the growing general chaos, they
will be able to preserve their own privileged positions.

Meanwhile, the bureaucratic regime, which, with its customary half-measures,
will be incapable of simultaneously pursuing the war, solving the economic
problems and suppressing or satisfying popular demands, will retreat further
and further into itself, losing control over the country and even contact
with reality.

A major defeat at the front, or a serious eruption of popular discontent
in the capital, such as strikes or an armed clash, will be enough to topple
the regime. Naturally, if by this time complete power has passed into the
hands of the military, the regime, thus modified, will hang on a little
longer. But if it fails to solve the most urgent problems, which in time
of war are almost insoluble, it I will then fall in an even more terrible
manner. If I have determined the time of the outbreak of war correctly,
the collapse of the regirne will occur sometime between 1980 and 1985.

Obviously, the Democratic Movement, which the regime through constant
repression has prevented from gathering strength, will be in no condition
to take control into its own hands in any event, not long enough to solve
the problems of the country. The unavoidable "deimperialization" will take
place in an extremely painful way. Power will pass into the hands of extremist
elements and groups, and the country will begin to disintegrate into anarchy,
violence and intense national hatred.

The boundaries of the new states which will then begin to emerge on
the territory of the former Soviet Union will be extremely hard to determine.
The resulting military clashes will be exploited by the neighbors of the
Soviet Union above all, of course, by China.

But it is also possible that the "middle class" will prove strong enough
to keep control in its own hands. In that case, the granting of independence
to the various Soviet nationalities will come about peacefully and some
sort of federation will be created, similar to the British Commonwealth
or the European Economic Community. Peace will be concluded with China,
which will also have been weakened by the war, and the conflicts with European
neighbors will be settled on mutually acceptable terms. It is even possible
that the Ukraine, the Baltic Republics and European Russia will enter a
Pan-European federation as independent units.

A third possibility also exists namely, that none of these things may
happen.

But what will, in fact, happen? I have no doubt that this great Eastern
Slav empire, created by Germans, Byzantines and Mongols, has entered the
last decades of its existence. Just as the adoption of Christianity postponed
the fall of the Roman Empire but did not prevent its inevitable end, so
Marxist doctrine has delayed the break-up of the Russian Empire, the third
Rome, but it does not possess the power to prevent it.

Carrying this analogy further, one can also assume that in Central Asia,
for instance, there could survive for a long time a state that considered
itself the successor of the Soviet Union, a state which combined traditional
Communist ideology, phraseology and ritual with the traits of Oriental
despotism, a kind of contemporary Byzantine Empire.

But although the Russian Empire has always sought maximum isolation
from the world, it would hardly be correct to discuss its fall in a context
unrelated to the rest of the world.

Scientific progress is generally considered the fundamental direction
of contemporary development, and total nuclear war is regarded as the basic
threat to civilization. And yet even scientific progress, with every passing
year I consuming progressively more of the world's production, could become
regressive and civilization may perish with 1 out benefit of a dazzling
nuclear explosion.

Although scientific and technical progress changes the i world before
our very eyes, it is, in fact, based on a very narrow social foundation.
The more significant scientific successes become, the sharper will be the
contrast between those who achieve and exploit them and the rest of the
world. Soviet rockets have reached Venus, while in I the village where
I live potatoes are still dug by hand. This should not be regarded as a
comical comparison; it is a gap which may deepen into an abyss.

The crux of the matter is not the way in which potatoes are dug but
the fact that the level of thinking of most people is no higher than this
manual level of potato digging. In fact, although in the economically developed
countries science demands more and more physical and human resources, the
fundamental principles of modern science are understood by only an insignificant
minority. For the time being this minority, in collusion with the ruling
elite, enjoys a privileged status. But how long will this continue?

Mao Tse-tung talks about the encircling of the "city" meaning the economically
developed countries by the "village" meaning the underdeveloped countries.
In fact, the economically developed countries constitute only a small part
of the total world population. But what is more, even in the developed
countries the "city" is encircled by the "village" the village in the literal
sense of the word or former village dwellers who have only recently moved
to the city. And even in the cities the people who direct modern civilization
and benefit from it are an insignificant minority.

Finally, in our inner world, too, the "city" is encircled by the "village,"
the "village" of the subconscious and at the first disruption of our customary
values we immediately feel it. Is not, in fact, this gap between city and
village the greatest potential threat to our civilization?

The threat to the "city" from the "village" is all the greater in view
of the fact that in the "city" there exists a noticeable tendency
toward the ever greater isolation of the individual, while the "village"
is aspiring to organization and unity. This gladdens the heart of Mao Tse-tung,
but the inhabitants of the world's cities have reason, as I see it, to
worry about their future.

Meanwhile, we are told, Western prognosticators are indeed worried by
the growth of the cities and the difficulties brought on by the rapid pace
of scientific and technological progress. Evidently, if "futurology" had
existed in Imperial Rome, where, as we are told, people were already erecting
six-story buildings and children's merry-go-rounds were driven by steam,
the fifth-century "futurologists" would have predicted for the following
century r the construction of twenty-story buildings and the industrial
utilization of steam power.

As we now know, however, in the sixth century goats were grazing in
the Forum just as they are doing now, beneath my window in this village.